Japan: Living in an Internet Cafe - <AUTHOR> http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/japan-disposable-workers-unemployment-jobs-crisis-economy-internet-cafe

<comment><USER2> I'm reminded of a very brief period when I was about 10 where my family found themselves "in between homes". Having to foot long-term, but temporary living ourselves, and not knowing how long we were going to be in that situation (a year long lease wouldn't have worked), the four of us ended up at a cheap motel for a couple months.

One of the enduring memories I have of such accommodations was the seedy underbelly of society I was exposed to. Drug addicts wandering the halls, mentally ill homeless spending their panhandling money for a night in a clean bed with a hot shower...it culminated when a local, very high, gang member mistook our room for another, and at 2 in the morning tried to force entry so he could "cut the balls off of Tony". It was one of the few times I've ever seen my father scared, with noplace to run and 3 other people he was responsible for, I remember him rummaging through the room looking for any kind of weapon. My grandmother ultimately convinced the gang member that he had the wrong room and there was no Tony. He went down the hall and tried to force entry into another room. The police never bothered to come.

As appealing as these kinds of places might seem for the startup hacker culture, remember, cheap Japanese Internet Cafes won't necessarily translate into cheap _American_ Internet Cafes, even with the same amenities.

(In Korea, they have something called Goshiwons [1], which are small cheap rooms students rent out while studying for exams. They're usually near universities and would seem like a much better hacker dorm than sleeping on the dirty floor of an internet cafe.)

1 - [http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon](http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon)

<comment><USER3> My family had similar "between home" experiences. I suspect these sorts of experiences are not terribly uncommon, but I'll share a couple stories.

We stayed in a shady motel for 3 months. They hadn't paid the electric bill and we found out in the middle of the second night there. Front desk clerk waited for the technician to leave, then brings bolt cutters, a 2x4, and metal shims to the master panel... 3 minutes later (and a little bit of my help) power was back. Police visited daily, victimless felony arrests were quite common.

In another occasion, we spent 10 months in a campground frequented by biker gangs. To my parents' dismay, I made many friends (both my age and significantly older) and learned how to fight, had my first kiss, and grew to love heavy metal, got drunk for the first time, among other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In China, the most majority of population staying overnight in a net-bar (the Chinese term for net-cafe, though they are not serving alcohol particularly or to youth illegally anyway), might be youth students who are not allowed to hang out online at nights(, or even days), or immigrant workers who do not have Internet access at their apartments.

And it is occasionally used as a cheap replacement to hotel for some people.

The conditions(, as much as I know,) are far poorer than the Japanese ones shown in the photos, and many (maybe most of the) net-bars are open spaces, that there were rumours that people had their World of Warcraft passwords(, or maybe the passwords for value-add cards to WoW, which I cannot remember clearly) stolen after someone peeked through CCTVs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Given that there are people who can't afford a place to live coupled with the deflationary crisis, could someone explain to me what would be the issues, if the Japanese government simply starts giving out a minimum amount of money each month (as has been proposed for poorer countries where people actually face starvation).

On the face of it, this solves two problems in one go, the poor have a basic guaranteed income; and printing and distributing money solves the deflationary spiral and pushes the currency towards inflation.

<comment><USER6> "if the Japanese government simply starts giving out a minimum amount of money each month"

Don't you see? These type of thinking is what has gotten western countries (including Japan) into this crisis in the first place.

You can't print your way out of a crisis without harming savers (retired) and young people (lower skilled, less experienced).

<comment><USER7> > You can't print your way out of a crisis > without harming savers (retired) > and > young people (lower skilled, less experienced).

As a youngster I am tired of hearing shit like this. Do you have any historical example to show?

Because from what I've seen, post WWII countries came out of their crises riding protectionist policies rather than sacrificing their last generation or robbing their population. Like Korea.

<comment><USER8> Here in Brazil, the last attempt to print its way out of a crisis resulted into 2000% inflation.

The government in late 1993 and early 1994 then created a new currency, that would be pegged 1:1 with USD (later the pegging was removed, now it is about 2.2:1 ), and with limited supply. Also a bit time earlier, a president REMOVED money from people savings, literally (ie: he told banks to set the saving accounts to zero, and that is it).

This, along with some new laws about government spending fixed inflation and allowed the economy to run smoothly again.

Then around the 2000s, when the leftist government arose, they decided to solve poverty again by printing money and giving to the poor, at first it seemly worked, with GDP growth peaking at around 8% in a year, and millions of people leaving poverty and entering what here is called "lower middle class" (actually, in US that would still be considered poverty... here "lower middle class" is if you can rent something, and pay your own food, but rely on government services to education, health and transportation).

The popularity of the socialist government soared (it reached around 70% at its peak, that also peaked during the 8% growth year)...

Then we have currently 6.7% of yearly inflation (year to date data), 0.9% of GDP growth (2012 data) and most of the inflation drivers is housing costs and food (exactly the things that the "new middle class" could afford). Now the government approval is 30% and we have already 5 weeks of protests and strikes that never end, totally widespread, even to some crucial sectors (ie: several states have the police threatening to strike, and there are also threats of a military police strike, that is kinda ludicrous, because as military they cannot legally strike, and more than one high ranking officer of the army threatened a coup, with a general writing a anti-government text and all)

Printing your way out of crisis, only result in a sort of roller coaster economy, it booms and suddenly bust, at first, people with the influx of money start to spend a lot, and people build business to attend to them, then all this influx money result in inflation, suddenly the economy start sputtering, as inflation rises faster than GDP growth, and particularly food and housing inflation rises faster than wages and government welfare, and you have a vicious cycle of needing to print more money to save the population that spends this money and generate more inflation, and your real wealth creation sink.

EDIT: Oh, striker truckers are awesome too, because they are just parking their trucks in the middle of the highways and fucking up everything... Never piss off truckers when your economy rely completely on them because your trains are shit or non-existant.

<comment><USER9> > Printing your way out of crisis, only result in a sort of roller coaster > economy

That can happen in similar situations if you _don 't_ as well, though. Greece's typical response to financial crises until recently was currency devaluation, i.e. massive but controlled step-function inflation. That certainly has a lot of downsides. But now that Greece is in the Eurozone, it can't do that. Even post-crisis, the inflation is very low; there is even deflation if you look at local baskets of goods. But that has not kept the economy off of the roller-coaster. It's just been a different roller coaster, and likely a worse one (in the previous crises, Greece never had 65% youth unemployment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other day a Lyft driver in SF told me that he's considering renting an office space in Chinatown to live in. Gym membership to shower.

</comment><comment><USER11> In Korea, lots of people live in Jjimjilbang ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang)). It's like getting a gym membership, but without the gym and with much more options for washing. You also get all the benefits that an internet cafe has to offer (connectivity, snacks, etc.) but without having to curl up in a tiny cubicle.

<comment><USER2> Don't forget Goshiwons as well [http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon](http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Kinda reminds me of neuromancer privacy suites.

Far out.

</comment><comment><USER13> This reminds me of Coffin Hotels in William Gibson's Neuromancer somehow...

</comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, this is not news. I remember a BBC (?) reportage on the topic from 6+ years ago; at the time the angle was less about economic downturn (although the local stagflation phenomenon was mentioned) and more on social awkwardness / otaku life being exploited by cafe owners (they can kick you out pretty much at will). Sad to see things have not improved since.

</comment><comment><USER15> I stayed in these cafe's for about half of a month long trip through Japan. Partly to save money on hotels, partly for the experience and partly because their "internet cafes" are fucking awesome. I use quotes because they are nothing like what people in the West think of when they hear that term. They are designed for people to spend many, many hours in and are (generally) a really fun and comfortable place to do so. Particularly if you like being around college aged Japanese people and/or keep weird hours and/or spend lots of time online.

I wouldn't want to live in one but probably would if SoMa had an equivalent - and I imagine many others would as well.

<comment><USER16> > _I wouldn 't want to live in one but probably would if SoMa had an > equivalent - and I imagine many others would as well._

I came to the comments hoping someone else felt this way, actually. I really, really wish micro-accommodation would become a thing in American cities.

I'm moving to San Francisco after I graduate next spring. I would love it if some sort of crossover between a co-working space, a Japanese airport "capsule hotel"[1] and a hacker house type environment existed.

The hacker houses that exist now sound like a nice idea in theory[2] (being around a bunch of interesting, like-minded people). In practice, however, trying to get some sleep in a place like that sounds like - well, a nightmare. Great when you first arrive and are meeting people and going to interviews or whatever - not really viable over the long term for someone like me who values his sleep.

In my mind, I see a place where I have:

* A clean, comfortably appointed, soundproof capsule for sleeping

* Access to a nice, luxury-gym-like shared bathroom

* Access to a co-working space / commons area for hacking

I'm not sure how realistic this is given government regulations, housing prices, the number of people interested in actually paying for such a place, etc. Sure would be cool though.

[1] - [http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/01/12/1225986/0270...](http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/01/12/1225986/027006-capsule- hotel-china.jpg)

[2] - [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/technology/at-hacker- hoste...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/technology/at-hacker-hostels- living-on-the-cheap-and-dreaming-of-digital-glory.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><USER17> _I really, really wish micro-accommodation would become a thing in American cities._

Whilst I can understand your sentiment, I think a better solution would be that American cities had decent-sized cheap accommodation that was also well served by public amenities.

That said, I live in the UK, and when it comes to houses the British population are just plain stupid, and they eagerly rush into ridiculous housing at ridiculous prices.

<comment><USER18> _Whilst I can understand your sentiment, I think a better solution would be that American cities had decent-sized cheap accommodation that was also well served by public amenities._

Many cities do, just not the ones most people would probably rush off too first… and it doesn't help with the increase in housing costs in "popular cities".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rail Crossing Warnings Are Sought for Mapping Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/technology/google-digital-maps-railroad-crossings-ntsb.html <comment><USER3> I think we need to ensure people pay attention, instead of adding even more information to these systems.

Sure, we could add warnings for potentially dangerous railroad crossings (e.g. those that do not have a signal installation), and other dangerous places, but how to ensure that people do not rely even more on their systems and after a crash argue that their system did not warn them of this particular situation?

I know a street segment that is constantly blocked by trucks which blindly followed the GPS to a bridge they can't pass and turning around is almost impossible, although multiple signs warned them. Now and then a truck takes down the roof of the bridge, although a HUGE sign says it will be too low. Before the prevalence of the GPS, this almost never happened AFAIK, and the drivers always blame the GPS.

What about people driving off cliffs, into lakes, or as stated in the article, along blocked streets. If a guy puts up a sign that this street is closed, it is closed and you need to follow, no matter what your GPS tells you. The sign or any legal representative is the normative authority and you must obey - <USER2> GPS is merely assisting you.

Drivers need to pay attention - and they might have to learn to do it despite having an assisting device giving them directions.

<comment><USER4> I would be surprised if there was any link between bridge collisions and GPS, other than the fact that they now have something external to blame for the error.

I certainly remember multiple accidents, both in the news and happening to people I know, and seeing damage done to local bridges before GPS was common.

<comment><USER3> I think we are talking about different things.

What I meant: Truck drivers are driving down a 3 km long street, where it is clearly stated that they are not allowed to go and at then end of that street is very old, wooden bridge with a roof. Almost never trucks went down there until a few years ago, the roof had not been repaired in ages.

Since the prevalence of GPS that street is regularly blocked by trucks stuck at a dead end. The roof was taken down around a year ago by a large truck ignoring at least 5 signs he is supposed to look out for (multiple max weight, max height, etc.).

<comment><USER5> There probably should be some more sanity checks for GPS, since drivers even pre-smartphone era were horribly inattentive, and there is no more perfect example than the 11'8" bridge: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_foot_8_Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_foot_8_Bridge)

There are numerous compilation videos on youtube [1] about this bridge from a local, and it's not a matter of people following the GPS blindly each time, it's just inattentive drivers who don't pay attention to what is in their immediate vicinity. Watch the video linked and see how many warnings and alerts have been made for the bridge, and how often people keep skinning off the tops of trucks and RVs on it. It has a sensor to warn drivers in advance if their vehicle is too tall, signs everywhere, and I imagine there must be a fair amount of debris from the numerous accidents it has.

It's not just a matter of technology leading people astray, it is people not really being aware of their surroundings period. The warning from a GPS map might be nice and help, but I personally have a hard time believing that they'll pay attention to that any more than they would the multiple warnings in real life.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [First time commenter] I cannot thoroughly express the rage this kind of writing provokes into me. «He came upon the rail crossing before sunrise, having not slept substantively in more than 24 hours [during which he drove 350 miles], the safety board's report said.» The guy did something very wrong: what the hell do mapping apps have to do with this crash?

</comment><comment><USER7> I fear for the generation of drivers who never learned how to navigate without some App or GPS. By using voice announced turn-by-turn directions, you loose a certain amount of situational awareness, this situational awareness is critical to preventing all sorts of troubles while on the road.

<comment><USER8> Agree. Too many people are concerned with not missing their turn, and they will take extraordinary measures not to do so. If one misses a turn, too bad. Re-route. The number one concern of a driver on the road should not be getting to their destination - it should be operating the vehicle in a safe manner.

<comment> drunken-serval > Too many people are concerned with not missing their turn

This is not a new problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article says the truck got stuck on the railway - the same could have happened if the driver knew the route too, so I don't really understand why mapping apps are too blame. Here in the U.K. most (all?) at-grade crossings have lights, barriers, but most importantly an emergency telephone so you can contact the signal operator in situations such as this.

<comment><USER10> Most. Still a reasonable number of open crossings either in rural areas or for private use (e.g. between two fields of a particular farm). Lots of accidents at the open ones, too - Google the Rail Accident Investigation Branch if you want to read the post-accident investigation reports...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think there are 2 sides to this...

1) Its ridiculous... the gps is a guide, not a dictator, and you're still responsible for where you put your vehicle. If the guy was reading a map, he'd have had the same problem.

However, 2) With autonomous vehicles coming, potential places for a vehicle to get stuck should be on the maps...

</comment><comment><USER12> Whatever happened to simply teaching people what a level crossing looks like and not to stop on it?

Edit: Oh right I forgot self driving cars

</comment><comment><USER13> I just wish that mapping apps had information about traffic lights—"turn left in 2.3 miles" is much less useful than "turn left at the third light".

</comment><comment><USER14> Rail crossings often have gates across the paved road but never across the rail road. Why not put a wooden breakaway gate across the rail road as a visual barrier to warn drivers not to try to drive on the rails? If it failed in the down position the train could still safely drive through it at any speed.

Interestingly I would have considered the "driver attempt to take car on rails" an uncommon occurrence but just yesterday someone posted a video on the Palo Alto FB page of a Prius turning onto the tracks, then (luckily) backing out and proceeding, to take the actual right turn they thought they were making. Yikes!

</comment><comment><USER15> More importantly, our self driving cars need this data.

I think the convergence of drivers getting worse and self driving systems getting better is going to make this happen very soon.

</comment><comment><USER16> Instead of warnings, can I get the apps to please know where the crossings are and just avoid them if it doesn't cost too much time penalty?

(E.G. if there is a bridge near by that was built to avoid that issue, send me to it)</comment>


Presenting PostHub - <AUTHOR> http://posthub.me

<comment><USER2> To me, it seems like a poorly designed posterous/tumblr clone. I'll pass.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps add some screenshots, or tell us a little more about the app on your site? There's not much to go by as-is...

<comment><USER4> I agree. I would at least like to see a demo before taking the time to login with my own twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, they want to use my account to follow new people and update my profile. Why?

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea, but I'll stick with Github + Octopress.

</comment><comment><USER7> website down ?</comment>


Show HN: Functional Shell Developed with LiveScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Champii/LiveShell <comment><USER2> A very nice thing from the README:

> Each binary in $PATH is wrapped (ls, cat, head, ...)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Codename: lish

Now on NPM !

$> npm install lish

:)</comment>


Clojure 101 - <AUTHOR> http://rubylearning.com/blog/2010/03/09/clojure-101-a-new-course/ <comment><USER2> I would've liked a bit more detail about the course (times, dates, how classmates will collaborate) but it's hard to argue with free.

Edit: Signup took two minutes. Upon logging in I'm presented with a simple course management software dashboard that alludes to scheduling, student forums, grade tracking, course methodology, and uploaded resources.

There's also an associated GitHub repo: <http://github.com/ghoseb/clojure101/>

</comment><comment><USER3> As an HN community member, I find this a bit upsetting - this link got upmodded to 20 (as of now), and all it is is a link for a course offering. So either (a) fogus is part of a voting ring, or (b) the HN community has degenerated to the point where we upvote stuff based on title alone.

What gives?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not following. What exactly are your complaints about this submission? I submitted it because I thought it was interesting and apparently so did ~20 others. I assume you did not since you complained, but you could have instead not paid attention to it.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough. If enough folks found a free online course worthwhile, then I probably am overreacting. I think I'm just becoming (overly?) sensitive to the degengration of what used to be a stronger community. My apologies.</comment></comment></comment>


Chordoma Cancer Sucks (Feedback Please) - <AUTHOR> http://chordomasucks.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I think some people might view this as borderline spam. It might be. If I get down-voted flagged, so be it. However, I want some feedback regarding ways to make it more viral. (I also want votes and shares -- i.e. it may be spam.) The web stuff is not my thing. I just learned what a retweet was yesterday.

<comment><USER2> It's not spam, it's a cause, just don't know if it belongs here on HN. Regardless, I'm wishing you the best.

<comment><USER3> I can't tell if it's exactly HN material either, but the fact that he's hacking on the design of the page in real time does improve the argument that it is.

My 5 cents: You need more calls to action. Make more DONATE links, especially near the end -- you don't want to make the reader scroll backwards to find one.

This will seem cheesy. That's okay. You're doing a sales pitch. Everyone knows that within the first three seconds. The hard-boiled prose style will help balance the presence of all the DONATE links. You can even try to work them in in humorous ways. For example, I think it wouldn't be too silly if the last word on the page -- "donate", at the end of the final joke -- were linked to an action page.

I agree with the person who suggests asking for a specific dollar amount. ("$100, but if not, whatever you can afford") I base my argument on the fact that every phone solicitor does this, so someone must have determined it was effective. But I could be wrong. Perhaps this is the perfect time for some A/B testing.

Think of NPR, and how during their pledge drives they recite the phone number every fifteen seconds. [1] You get the impression that the people giving the spiels are staring at a clock that blinks every fifteen seconds with an alert: "SAY THE NUMBER NOW." Sometimes they barely manage to finish their sentence before injecting the number.

Good luck!

\---

[1] Note that, however annoying your page may be to some people, it is an order of magnitude less annoying than an NPR pledge drive. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have done a/b testing with X dollars for a different fund-raising project before. It does help boost money. I think this raises a more important point though -- my page was written yesterday specifically to address the JP Chase contest. Obviously, I am not emphasizing that enough.

I agree with the more links thing. I'm gonna add that in now (that is once I finish what i have to do for my actual 9-5 job).

[Edit: added more action links to each section]

Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER4> _my page was written yesterday specifically to address the JP Chase contest. Obviously, I am not emphasizing that enough._

Your right It's only now you've said that I properly noticed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This summer I met another guy who had chordoma, Josh Sommer. He's done a lot of amazing work helping to spark more research into the disease. Your page was the last kick in the pants I needed to look up a fundraising email he'd sent me awhile back and make a small contribution. Thank you.

When Josh first told me about chordoma, the question I asked myself was, "How can any disinterested party rationally decide to support a rare disease, when other diseases affect more people?". Your chart/discussion about the possibility of there being a higher ROI for rare disease research than for 'well established' disease research finally got me over this hurdle. Even though it has no numbers behind it, so I am not left "fully convinced" of anything, it at least created the possibility-space in my psyche that perhaps there is more reason to go after rare diseases than I'd realized.

In reality the emotional reason I have to give (having met Josh) is still a big reason why I care, but the attempt at a rational argument was the little nudge that pushed me over the edge: What if there are many such rare diseases that could benefit immensely from just a small fraction of the research that the big ones get? ...And what if studying these edge cases will also result in unexpected discoveries that have other implications?

"The more astute reader might immediately challenge this graph" line helps too. It makes me feel confident that you aren't trying to skew things one way without fully acknowledging the limits of your knowledge and the bias you hold.

Small comments: * the "cash is king" line put me off a bit, and I think it could be erased without losing any oomph. In the big picture, it's not just about cash, it's also about getting scientists interested, helping coordinate the research, all sorts of things. (Though it's true that cash may be the only way for a _normal_ person to contribute)

<comment><AUTHOR> Deleted the Cash is king comment. You're the second person to say that.

There is also an edge case potential. That is another point i will add to the page in a bit.

Re: Josh. We're not strangers ;)

<http://pathdependent.com/2009/11/04/preface_to_fundify/>

P.S. Thanks for the contribution!

<comment><USER5> You are most welcome. It is difficult (though not impossible, my life hasn't been without blemish) to imagine what it must be like to have a prognosis like yours. I admire everything you are doing to combat it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure how "he has a rare disease" became a reason to do _more_ to solve it; it should be more like "it was a freak accident," in the sense that the rarer the disease, the less it makes sense to fix it.

And you could easily recast your marginal benefit theory to go in the opposite direction: how many people devote all their time to thinking about curing Leukemia, compared to the number who are similarly obsessed with curing Chordoma? Large groups of smart, committed, well-funded people have economies of scale.

Chordoma clearly sucks, but this plea is just _empty_.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should not have been down-voted for this comment. My argument against that is you don't even need smart people to be obsessed with Chordoma. Simple things that are routinely done for other diseases that are done by technicians could yield major benefits. E.G. matched normal tissue sequencing, having a tissue bank (people how want to research Chordoma have a hell of a time getting some), etc. This is mostly an issue of money. It would be like if somehow streph infections never appeared until last year but penicillin was still found long ago. A average mind might be able to deduce that anti-biotics are a good call.

Actually, i should probably add this to my argument on the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The layout is very readable! however, I have one suggestion:

Left align your photo. Follow the advice of this book by Robin Williams:

"Find a strong alignment and stick to it."

"Avoid using more than one text alignment on the page (that is, don't center some text and right-align other text).

And please try very hard to break away from a centered alignment unless you are consciously trying to create a more formal, sedate presentation. Choose a centered alignment consciously, not by default."

\- The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. [http://books.google.com/books?id=n1AuwXafMO8C&lpg=PT42&#...
Take a look at the chapter above she shows some good examples of how to integrate images into a layout.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tested out your suggestion. It seems to integrate better your way. Changed.

Also thanks for the book recommendation. I'm going to add it to my (mile long) wish list. I am not a designer...

<comment><USER7> Nice, I'm glad you found it useful.

I would actually recommend her previous edition of the book. In this new version she trys to update it using color and it goes all wrong.

She is stretching her ability past her strong points. She is EXTREMELY good at the basics, but ask her to design something in color and its just bad IMHO.

This is the edition I like : [http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book- Typographic-...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic- Principles/dp/1566091594)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a little graph:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=Colon+Cancer,Breast+Cancer,Pr...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=Colon+Cancer,Breast+Cancer,Prostate+Cancer,Lung+Cancer,chordoma&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

Note the thin purple line on the graph, that's chordoma, in case you missed it. While this isn't scientific, it certainly paints a picture.

<comment><USER9> why does the trend for "breast cancer" spike around q3?

<comment><USER10> breast cancer awareness month

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found it effective. I logged into Facebook immediately and voted, so at least in my case you had the intended impact. I had never even heard of chordoma before today, so good on ya!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! And yea, it's really rare. You should not have heard of it. I was in the ER recently for a allergic reaction to an unknown substance. The ER doc doing a history said, "um...a...what?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The copy is too aggressive, I understand your position but as I was reading more of the page the more disconnected I was.

IMO, you should rewrite it to make it more persuasive.

<comment><AUTHOR> My friend seem equally split on this issue. I prefer direct writing, but even some of them -- people who liked me -- said they were turned off. On the other hand, a lot of them said things like, "I wish most solicitations were like this. Just tell me what you want and if i can I will."

I.E. I am not sure if i should or should not change it.

<comment><USER11> I guess it's a difficult choice, I'd stick to the one that feels more authentic to you. It's impossible that everybody likes it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like it. Add some more line spacing at least on that first paragraph where you've got highlights. The background color is cutting of the descender on your lower-case "g" in the first line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I changed it but it's actually just the underline obscuring it. However, I actually like the way the first paragraph looks when I add spacing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It needs an index on one side to the pertinent parts of the website, and an index on the other side with links to the different foundations/places to donate. My initial reaction was disorientation because of the lack of navigation and the huge font.

Also you might want to try try offsetting the main text from the white background using a slightly darker (greyish) color. You can do all of this relatively easily using css. Giving the header an (offsetting) background color might help as well. You also might want to use a smaller font for your body text (and add in more text even if you don't expect people to read it all).</comment>


GOP Lawmakers Want to Make Gun Silencers Easier to Buy -- to protect hearing. - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-silencers-bill_562a405fe4b0ec0a38941ad2 <comment><USER2> God bless America.</comment>


The Perfect Social Network - <AUTHOR> https://peergos.org/posts/perfect-social-network <comment><USER2> Every now and then over the years, I've considered designing The Perfect On- line Discussion Group software.

Every time, I've gotten a half hour or so into the process and realized I'm re-inventing trn 4.0.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thx for this!</comment>


Show HN: Do you need this "Yelp for Builder Tools"? - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackertoolbox.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be useful if hackers here can leave some reviews on [http://hackertoolbox.com](http://hackertoolbox.com).

Hacker news is a great community for discussion, but how do the discussions[1] help people decide which tools they should consider? I doubt it's usefulness. How many times do you see people asking suggestions on which domain registrar is the best[2]? Today do you check Yelp before going to a new restaurant or asking that somewhere? I check what the top restaurants in the area and what the top dishes/food they provide. I buy products on Amazon after reading the reviews and feel uncomfortable to buy products with zero review and rating.

HackerToolbox wants to persist the great discussions/reviews and makes that for future use.

[1] Tools of the trade, 2013 edition [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235137)

[2] Two similar questions asked on the same day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541117](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541117) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541654](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541654)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not sure that the "Yelp for Builder Tools" is very relevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you elaborate more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's not how Yelp works. Yelp is information + feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true. The feedback is user contributed. If you write one review on HackerToolbox, it will be more like Yelp :)</comment></comment>


Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers - <AUTHOR> https://swissdevjobs.ch/blog/switzerland-vs-silicon-valley <comment><USER3> __Bullshit alert __They start with: "Maybe it is because of the outrageous rents eating over 30% of the salary and houses you cannot afford unless you joined Facebook or Google at the right time? " Regarding the SV.

Then, this is what they (proudly) say about Switzerland: 1) "In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (50+ square meters) for something between 2500-4000 CHF " 2) "In Switzerland a Software Developer can easily earn over 100,000 CHF (1 CHF is around 1 USD) "

So, that means that we can calculate your rent there to be between 30% to 48%. But I guess, just because it is in Switzerland, it should not be outrageous?

<comment><USER4> Yeah this article is interesting. Cost of housing is basically being described as as high as the Bay Area, but the salaries sound quite a bit lower. Junior devs in SF are making maybe $110-130k, vs 60-90 that the article claims in switzerland. Senior devs are making maybe $180-220k, plus more in stock options/RSUs (which despite the negative reaction to them here on HN, actually do often turn into real money at least at unicorns or public companies) vs $120k+ mentioned in the article.

More generally I've been wondering about this and can't figure it out, why are software engineer salaries in Europe are so much lower than the US? From what I can tell, Switzerland is just about the highest you'll see in Europe, and is still lower than the biggest US tech hubs. In other big metropolitan areas (Paris, London, etc.), the cost of living is at least a bit lower, but they're still major cities and not _that_ cheap. And there salaries for engineers are even lower. As another concrete data point I was looking through the gitlab location adjustments for remote workers that they have released publicly[0], and the floor for anywhere in the US, meaning even the most inexpensive, remote parts in the country, is 63.3% of the baseline SF salary. Any mid-tier city will be higher than that, like 75% of the SF salaries. But Paris only pays 56.5% of the SF baseline. Why is that?

[0] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/blob/master/dat...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/blob/master/data/location_factors.yml)

<comment><USER5> A hypothesis I've not tested: salaries are adjusted for risk. European countries have strong labour protections so hiring parties must take on hires at high risk if they don't perform (can't fire them easily). Initial evidence for hypothesis: contractors and freelancers working locally in these countries still have high incomes.

<comment><USER6> In all honesty, skills could be another factor. Although we have many extremely competent people, the general job market in France for example doesn't require very advanced technical skills. I compare to Sydney where, with 4 years experience in France and with credentials, I wasn't up to the game. Sydney people, for example, are extremely skilled.

So we must not throw away the skills factor, the ability of employees to build an extremely successful company, their motivations, their awareness of new business practices, although it is very difficult to measure it. Perhaps France is ahead (after all, a lot of Linux is European, along with DailyMotion and others), perhaps it is not (...after all, DailyMotion only got the second seat and is now dwarfed by Youtube).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm an American expat in Switzerland working as an independent software developer and startup founder. I can agree with a lot of the points listed in the article, but they apply universally to almost all jobs (not just to software developers).

I would raise a few points it doesn't mention:

\- Negatively, it is _much_ harder to find meetups close to you that apply to you. Unless you're based in Zürich (the tech hub of the region), expect any meetups to be irregular and if you don't go to the next one, it might be the last one.

\- Positively, I work from home. I have four providers I could get 1Gbps symmetrical, unmetered, business-class FTTH for less than 100,- CHF / month. It's hard to go wrong with that.

\- Positively, the outdoor culture in much of the country really helps you get out of your chair and outdoors. The natural beauty doesn't hurt. :-)

Happy to answer any more questions if you have them—or I'm more than happy to connect if you're also in Switzerland!

<comment><USER8> > Positively, I work from home. I have four providers I could get 1Gbps > symmetrical, unmetered, business-class FTTH for less than 100,- CHF / month. > It's hard to go wrong with that.

I pay 79.99 USD a month for Verizon Fios 1 gbps in nyc. That is before a $200.00 credit. Fios is FTTH. That's a good 20-25% discount to what you pay in Switzerland.

Plus I heard from several colleagues and friends who are people of color that they faced more racism in Switzerland (and a few European countries) than in the US. I know this is subjective and everyone's experience is different. But you can't ignore the fact that the CEO's of two of the largest tech companies in the US are Indians. I don't know of any large European companies that are being run by people of color. Maybe they are but I just don't know.

<comment><USER9> I know a Swiss expat living in America who moved here for that exact reason. His wife is Cuban, and they said they felt more at home and accepted in the US after a few months than they did after 10 years of living in Switzerland. They both loved Switzerland, but they cited the insular culture as the primary reason for leaving. His wife just couldn't handle it anymore.

<comment><USER10> > the insular culture

Anecdotally, this is the reason most people struggle as expats in CH.

<comment><USER11> Do / can expats just hang out with each other?

<comment><USER10> Yes, out of necessity I gather. Seemingly typical of most foreign countries with strong expat presence, but Swiss are notoriously insular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> After reading this article, here is my advice to a developer in the Bay Area

1\. Definitely don't move to Switzerland. Your cost of living will be very similar, you will have to work more than 40 hours a week, and your salary will go down.

2\. Move literally anywhere else in the USA. I live in Boulder, Colorado and its awesome. Mountains and trails out my door with a great city scene as well. People snob at Boulder because its getting expensive, but you can still rent a 1 bedroom for 1300, and get a room in a house for $800. Google, Twitter and Uber are here if you want FAANG level compensation, as well as a bunch of other small companies.

3\. Or better yet, get a remote job and move to somewhere even cheaper. I work remotely and it was really hard not to move to Bend, Oregon. I could have bought a nice house there for what I paid for my small townhome in Boulder. The only reason I didn't do it is because I am a fanatic rock climber and the climbing around Boulder is better.

One thing I have found about working remotely is that its pretty easy to work 35 hours a week and produce the same output as a full time, in office employee. Less distractions and in-office chitchat, and more working time. In practice this means that you can wake up at 7:30, make a coffee, be online at 8am, and then be free by 3pm. The Swiss 9 to 6 is a hard sell with this lifestyle.

<comment><USER13> >One thing I have found about working remotely is that its pretty easy to work 35 hours a week and produce the same output as a full time, in office employee. Less distractions and in-office chitchat, and more working time. In practice this means that you can wake up at 7:30, make a coffee, be online at 8am, and then be free by 3pm

This is _highly_ individual. My company lets me work remote whenever and as much as I want. I still spend the vast majority of my time in the office because I'm far less productive when working from home.

<comment><USER14> I've been working remotely for twelve years now and I think that today I wouldn't be able to write a single line of code in a crowded space with other people.

<comment><USER13> Me neither, which is why I refuse to work for a company with that kind of work environment. So far, my personal experience is office>cubicle>home. If I ever do find myself unfortunate enough to be forced to take an open office job, I expect it will rank below working from home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I used to live in Switzerland, so maybe we can mention some of the downsides.

It's racist. Really racist. If you're white, no one's going to hassle you to see your papers. If you're not, keep them with you. Expect to meet hostility in shops and markets and get quoted different prices than white people. Those 25% immigrants the article mentions? Mostly European, and many of those aren't immigrants. They were born and raised in Switzerland, but are still considered immigrants.

It's rigid. I'm not sure I want my children going to school in a system where using the wrong color pen is penalized comparably to getting the answer wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> If you're single or a couple dating, love tech, move to SV. Don't deprive yourself of that experience.

Hire a professional relocator to find your apartment. That's what we did. Company paid for it.

Every third person you will meet is an engineer, generally working on something cool. Everyone has ideas as to how you can do things "better" \- from tech to processes to politics.

You can attend all sorts of product launch parties, meetups, company socializers. So many that it's impossible to go to them all.

You can meet many of the founders and engineers that you read from on HN. Either they live in SF/Bay Area or end up visiting. Just tweet at them and ask.

I've never regretted those years.

The financial line gets much blurrier when we started having a family, along with the SF school system isn't that great.

But for tech culture, it was one of a kind. So. Much. Tech. And I loved every moment of it.

<comment><USER17> "Every third person you will meet is an engineer, generally working on something cool. Everyone has ideas as to how you can do things "better" \- from tech to processes to politics. ... You can attend all sorts of product launch parties, meetups, company socializers. So many that it's impossible to go to them all. ... You can meet many of the founders and engineers that you read from on HN. Either they live in SF/Bay Area or end up visiting. Just tweet at them and ask."

I live in the SFBA for reasons other than tech/career but this has been a _huge_ plus. It's very interesting and exciting to visit the major tech HQs and meet founders and engineers living and working here, etc.

My favorite example of this was last year, 2018, when Twilio Signal was coincident with Litquake. I stayed in the city all week and talked shop with Twilio folks all day and went to talks/lectures about the evils of technology every evening :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sure.

Now name any Swiss company that makes software that you heard of before.

I'll wait.

Switzerland is eager to compare itself to Silicon Valley as a center for education and innovation, but I have lived here for 11 years and I can tell you that that comparison is utter horse shit. Why?

Because Switzerland, as a tiny neutral country, most of all lacks ambition. You can't make it as a small company with lots of ideas.

You couldn't pay the salaries for talent - the talent can earn double or triple working in private banking, insurance of big pharma.

Or maybe the talent already moved away since very few companies can afford to even open offices in Switzerland, or if they do, they are sales only. Google, Microsoft and IBM are the biggest exceptions in the Zurich area.

</comment><comment><USER19> Like half of these are negatives, imo.

1) I've found places in the bay for way less than what they were saying, even without roommates. Its like 2k for a 1br in Lake Merritt, which is 15-20 minute BART to SF.

2) Yes startups that are pre-seed/ pre-series A will have crazy hours, but any big tech co. will be pretty close to 40 hours a week. My team is pretty big about work life balance, and we work at a place infamous for not caring about it. I generally work 9-5, with whatever wfh I want.

3) See point 1. Granted if you want a house, it'll be more/farther out, but apartments can still be had.

4) Money is better in the US. I currently make about 160k USD, which is more than pretty much any European Dev will make.

6) 300 CHF is still 6x what I pay for healthcare per month. I currently pay 46 USD per month for (from what I can tell is excellent) healthcare, vision, and dental.

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the bay area (expensive, local politics are fucked, everyone is a tech bro, etc), but some of these are a bit ridiculous and not very indicative. There's a reason why the bay area is a desired place to live, and why I personally am trying to move back there.

<comment><USER20> > 6) 300 CHF is still 6x what I pay for healthcare per month. I currently pay > 46 USD per month for (from what I can tell is excellent) healthcare, vision, > and dental.

You are the exception here, not the rule. 46 USD for Healthcare is pretty rare in the US. It's not uncommon for people to spend 500 USD per month, so 300 CHF would look good to many people.

There is also the potential argument that the Swiss healthcare system is better overall than the US system, but that could be a complete debate in itself.

<comment><USER21> > 46 USD for Healthcare is pretty rare in the US.

For a software developer (the subject of the post) it is not pretty rare. The median software developer is well over six figures in the US now for salary. Having your healthcare entirely or nearly entirely covered by your employer, is not unusual when you're over $100k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The founder of Autodesk, John Walker, has written extensively on this topic since moving to Switzerland decades ago.

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/pourquoi_la_suisse/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/pourquoi_la_suisse/)

<comment><USER18> ...and then they closed their Swiss offices in 2017 [0].

[0] [https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/software-shock_autodesk-to- shut...](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/software-shock_autodesk-to-shut- neuchâtel-offices/43716966)

<comment><USER22> He no longer works at Autodesk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (50+ square meters) for something > between 2500-4000 CHF

Is USD 2500 - USD 4000 supposed to be cheap?!

<comment><USER24> Yeah and that's for a 538 sqft apartment. I don't know the specifics of the San Francisco rental market, but you can easily beat $4k/mo for a studio in desirable parts of Manhattan, so I assume the same is true of SV

<comment><USER25> $3000 will get you a not bad one bedroom in a old building with rent control in SF, or in a new building in the burbs.

<comment><USER26> You can do $3k for a 1BR/studio in a new building? I've been seeing >$3,600 in Peninsula currently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A maybe minor point: It's more or less impossible to become a Swiss if you aren't already whereas it's kind of possible to become an American. If your company makes it it's entirely possible this can become a problem down the line, for instance regarding your tax status or rights and obligations.

Also, the culture is _remarkably_ different, so if you're expecting something similar to the american college campus-like experience large companies offer over there you're in for a hell of a culture shock.

<comment><USER28> > A maybe minor point: It's more or less impossible to become a Swiss if you > aren't already whereas it's kind of possible to become an American. If your > company makes it it's entirely possible this can become a problem down the > line, for instance regarding your tax status or rights and obligations.

These days it's significantly easier to get a Swiss passport than a US one for most nations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow, talk about making me not want to move to Switzerland. Granted, I'm not in the bay area but...

1\. Accommodation prices seem about the same where I live.

2\. I work 40 hours a week too

3\. 20 minute bus ride for me so no "2 hour commute".

4\. 120,000 CHF for a senior? I make over 200,000 and I have less than 4 years of experience. That would be a huge pay cut.

5\. 35% income taxes + state? This is just blatantly false as effective federal income tax rate doesn't hit 35% until over a million. I for example paid just 22% in federal income taxes including social security and medicare.

6\. My biweekly copay is just $50. Granted, I am on a high deductible plan but the deductible is only 1300 with a max out of pocket limit of 2600 a year and I have a health savings account which allows me to save/invest 100% tax free income for health care spending.

</comment><comment><USER30> Switzerland is a complex system: instead of 1 high rate tax, you pay many low taxes. So cheating is not worth it individually (too risky/complex for a small saving). But the sum is crazy.

Exemple of taxes/mandatory ccharges a developper will pay: network tax, photocopy tax, radio tax, VAT, AHV/IV, garbage elimination tax, city tax, state tax, federal tax, healthcare (in some countries it is included in your "federal/state" tax), etc.

I just got my "final tax decision"... Switzerland is a fiscal inferno if your income comes from work (vs capital gain)...

Usually, I work __6 month __per year for taxes. My grand parents were working 1 to 1.5 month in the 60s-70s to pay their taxes also as "independant".

Plus with all the crazy fix and variable costs, it is not competitive as an independant or small company.

Today, as a "personne morale" (corporation) only complex fiscally optimized structures can get a low tax rate (or as a "physical person" if you are ultra rich (3 comma club) not professionally active in the country you can negotiate a very low rate).

PS: also, can we definitively kill the ridiculous myth/reputation of Swiss data protection? (In case of criminal investigation, in many cantons (equivalent to states) a police investigator does not even need a judge warrant to have access to the data)

<comment><USER31> > Usually, I work 6 month per year for taxes.

Having worked as freelance in switzerland, that sound weird and make me thing : "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

<comment><USER30> Each situation is different and depends on an infinity of parameters (for exemple do not forget that a married couple pays more taxes than two individuals).

Income city+state+federal (30%), VAT (7,6%), AHV (11%) + all the rest I have lost count of.

For exemple, I pay 2,7% for PCI (Family allowance tax).

I have a very good revenue by Swiss standard. Everything from work, nothing from capital gain.

\- I work in Romandie where personal tax a waaaay higher than in Swiss Germany and I am not in the best city...

\- I do not count 2nd pilier as it is a "capitalisation" system and not "redistribution" (AHV). But are also mandatory insurances. Also, the revenue you will get at retirement is shrinking (due to life expectancy and negative rates) and is forecasted to even decrease in the future.

\- Do not forget that Federal tax is not linear...

PS: Fun fact. Almost all successful French tennis players have lived in Switzerland a few years because they could negociate their taxes. Roger Federer or Wawrinka who have done a lot for a positive image of Switzerland had to pay full rate...

PS2: Company tax system is under _total_ renovation now (because of pressure from Europe). I can imaging that personal tax will follow in the coming decade __s __.

<comment><USER32> > for exemple do not forget that a married couple pays more taxes than two > individuals

Not necessarily, it depends on details like the canton and the income of each person.

<comment><USER30> This issue may be fixed in the future, but unfortunately still a reality. [https://www.efd.admin.ch/efd/de/home/themen/steuern/steuern-...](https://www.efd.admin.ch/efd/de/home/themen/steuern/steuern- national/reform-der-ehe--und-familienbesteuerung/fb- reform_ehe_und_familienbesteuerung.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Please note that the labour market is regulated in Switzerland and that, depending on where you come from (especially outside EU), it may be difficult or impossible to obtain a work permit.

<comment><USER33> Is that different from Silicon Valley?

<comment><USER34> You may be thinking of H1-B work visas. Those are capped but nationally rather than for Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Zurich's strength is also that it's centrally located in Europe, within 1-2 hours of France, Germany, and Italy and close to mountains for skiing. There are also some serious negatives ignored in the article. First, weather is a lot worse than in California. It's wet and cold. Second, they speak Swiss German, which means all administrative forms are in that language. Most people will speak English, at least in a business setting but it's not as easy as in London or even Amsterdam. If you have kids they will grow up speaking German. Another negative is the price of food and restaurants and the lack of food diversity.

<comment><USER7> > Second, they speak Swiss German, which means all administrative forms are in > that language.

All government forms are in (High/Schrift) German, French, and Italian.

> lack of food diversity.

This is certainly true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The tax section is incredibly misleading. For Ireland, the 12.5% tax rate is corporation tax, not for individuals. The effective income tax rate in Ireland for dev level salaries is 40%+, after a point your marginal tax rate becomes 52%.

Quickly looking into it, all the tax rates look like the corporation tax. The graph is blatantly wrong across the board.

</comment><comment><USER37> Cons: no Sun and the salaries seem to be capped at CHF 120-140K. Has that old school European mindset that managers and MBAs should be paid more than individual contributors, engineers.

<comment><USER38> Lots of Sun, but maybe not as much as Southern California.

San Francisco is famously non-sunny (all that cloud).

Salaries are certainly not capped at 140k CHF, I've seen a number of job ads for 180K CHF and that doesn't count stock options which is usually the bulk of compensation at the high end.

Not sure about the MBA vs IC thing though.

<comment><USER39> > Salaries are certainly not capped at 140k CHF, I've seen a number of job ads > for 180K CHF Are you speaking about CH or USA? Because in CH it pretty much > seems to be capped at 140k CHF and below. Unless you are speaking of a very > specific role/technology stack.

<comment><USER38> I was applying for roles recently that were as high as 180K CHF (and that wasn't FAANG).

<comment><USER40> Can you share some company names? Seems rare

<comment><USER38> One I applied for recently was dacadoo[0]

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacadoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacadoo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Moving their in 20 days. (software engineer from London).

In my opinion there is less opportunities there (In Switzerland) higher starting salary, then people get stuck in the middle 120-140, and can't shift past. (for the reasons mentioned below). Because managers don't want to pay developers more than themselves.

HOWEVER, that same problem exists in London, but is typically solved by developers going day-rate contract. That way management can justify and still get experience.

Because the market is smaller in Switzerland it does not make it so easy for a day-rate contractor market to exist..

So, my point is, if Switzerland is better than London for developers on a global level. Its only marginal. But compared to other salaries, Doctors, Dentists Lawyers, Engineers etc. Developers in London are well paid (treated as technical roles similar to those mentioned) Whereas in Switzerland developers are paid half++ of those jobs.

<comment><USER42> I have seen some day rate contracts in Zurich at astronomical rates, if you don't mind working for a Big Bank. One of them even offered expensed flights, hotel accommodation and a (substantial) per diem!

J2EE isn't the bleeding edge but it can keep the lights on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 1\. How easy/difficult to get Switzerland citizenship if you live and work there?

2\. How popular is English language is in Switzerland IT companies?

<comment><USER44> 1\. The path to citizenship is pretty long as an adult: [https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/themen/buergerrecht/ein...](https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/themen/buergerrecht/einbuergerung/ordentliche_einbuergerung.html)

But once you tick the boxes it's not particularly hard.

2\. Very.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> my brilliant colleague went to Zurich for a year to work with finance people on math problems. He said that it was not the culture to mix socially, he liked to ride his road bike in the good weather, and basically, he worked the entire year without making any friends or being social. Then he left. It was expensive for him at the time (no details) even as a well-paid young math programmer, so it was not a big financial win. His french is not great, so that was also a problem. He did not recommend the experience.

<comment><USER18> Can confirm - the local media will reprint the same articles every few months on how expats are moving away because the Swiss are too standoffish.

And that includes Germans. I don't want to lean too heavily on the cliches, but if you come across cold even compared to Germans, surely that's a sign.

Source: German expat, living in Switzerland since 2008.

<comment><USER11> Can and do the expats just socialize with each other to mitigate the problem?

<comment><USER18> Yes, they can and do.

This of course leads to a societal enclave where even expats that would like to integrate into Swiss society find it harder and harder to do so.

On the other hand, the more right-wing press and parties use them to point out the perceived lack of willing to integrate into society to further restrict immigration.

I wouldn't describe this as a mitigation, more of an escalation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> What about formal requirements? The software field in the US is known for not caring a whole lot about people's educational backgrounds as long as they can do the job. Is Switzerland the same or are degrees hard requirements?

<comment><USER47> Maybe the companies don't care, but apparently the US government does. There's a hard requirement for H-1B, that the applicant hold at least a four-year bachelor's degree in a relevant field or its equivalent, and will be employed in a position which requires such a degree.

<comment><USER48> From uscis.gov: 'Have education, training, or progressively responsible experience in the specialty that is equivalent to the completion of such a degree, and have recognition of expertise in the specialty through progressively responsible positions directly related to the specialty.'

[https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary- worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary- workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations-dod-cooperative-research-and-development- project-workers-and-fashion-models)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b They have no shame. They went as far as praising Switzerland's diversity and inclusiveness... Come on...

Healthcare may be the only reason, but you also have it everywhere else...

<comment><USER49> Switzerland is extremely diverse. There are four official languages, and 20+% of the population is foreign-born. In Zurich, that rate is much higher.

<comment> d--b Ok, well, depends what you call diversity.

In the US, it generally means racial diversity. Sure Switzerland has a lot of European people from various countries. But it is nonetheless a very white country...

I'm just saying that writing that Switzerland is more diverse than Silicon Valley is ridiculous.

<comment><USER49> That's a very superficial measure of diversity. There's a lot more to a person than the color of their skin. It makes no sense to apply that extremely narrow definition of diversity to a European country, or even to the US.

<comment> d--b Yes, I am kind of simply stating what people imply when they say diversity.

For most people a group of 3 people: one Chinese, one Egyptian, and one Columbian is a culturally more diverse (my definition), than a group of Germans, Austrian, French, Belgians and Dutch...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The problem is, the salaries in Switzerland are terrible for good software engineers.

This page says 120,000 CHF for 5 years of experience. That's around $120,000 USD.

At Google, someone with that much experience is at least an L5. According to [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) in the Silicon Valley region that gets you total comp of $360,000.

Yeah, not everyone is making Google money. But a lot of software engineers around here are, or they will be at some point during their career.

<comment><USER44> An L5 at Google Zurich will earn almost the same as one in Mountain View, pay less taxes and have more vacation.

Sure there are more high paying jobs in the Bay Area, but there are also lots of start-ups that pay pretty average salaries plus monopoly money that make the total compensation look good on paper. Assuming everyone will eventually be in the top 10% is silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Many of the comments here insist on housing prices. I'm a Zurich local for the 7th year and would like to put this into perspective.

Sharing a flat here is something many younger single people do, but even for the older generation is not a taboo (my friend shared a flat with a single mother and her kid for a couple years). I myself share an enormous modern penthouse-like apartment on a top of a building, at a good and quiet location in Zurich. I wanted to have flatmates (winters are dark and boring here :-) ) and one of the side effects is the cost saving. I never lived in bigger luxury, yet I pay 10% of my monthly income for the rent.

Public transportation is affordable, fast, clean, and again, in contrast to the US, not looked down on. A manager in the bank sits next to the paintshop worker on the bus and this is completely fine. I have lived outskirts too, yet never had more than 30min commute.

Life might seem inconvenient here (bikes preferred over cars, young people share flats instead of their own kingdom, 2-3x more $$$ for a restaurant dinner, etc), however, all these facts also contribute to better physiological and mental health.

It's not for everyone thou, YMMV, etc.

On the SWEng side, it's a whole different question. Less competitive environment, less cool bubble projects, no Juicero-like promises to get superrich superfast. (Although this might also one of the factors for a better mental health ;-) )

</comment><comment><USER52> "Silicon Valley is dead for Software Developers"?

Nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded.

</comment><comment><USER53> The country, I would really want to emigrate to is Portgual. lots of sun, low cost of living. but it seems there's no tech jobs there and they pay poorly. I'm not seeking SV money, either but more like mid city US money in the range of 50-75k EUR for a mid level engineer

<comment><USER54> Sadly in Portugal 30-40k€ seem to be the top of the market. In spite of that relatively low number, it still buys a high living standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> How is it better if the salaries are lower.

I am tired of engineers should care about their "craft" above all else dictums. Software engineering is somehow more pure and innocent than evil finance ( for example).

I would rather earn a lot in my prime and retire early to a place of my choosing.

<comment><USER56> There's a lot of people who care about more than just raw salary. I could get a higher salary in the Bay Area but my quality of life would drop substantially. It's not worth it. And although my paycheck would go up, my discretionary income would drop substantially as well. It doesn't matter if I get paid 2x if my cost of living is 3x and my commute time is 5x.

<comment><USER57> >It doesn't matter if I get paid 2x if my cost of living is 3x and my commute time is 5x.

It depends where you're coming from. If your current cost of living is $2000/month, your salary is $100,000/year and your commute is 10 minutes, your above ratios would lead to $200,000/year salary, $6000/month cost of living and 50 minutes commute in the Bay Area, increasing disposable income from $76k to $128k. Many people would happily trade the extra commute for the 60%+ increase in money to spend or save.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Tech recruiter in Zurich here. I run [https://coderfit.com](https://coderfit.com) and connect programmers with jobs in Zurich for a living. (I programmed for money before, so I know the market from many sites.)

Taxes are low, salaries high and things costs less than one thinks. Yet, the biggest downsite here is the lack of jobs. Zurich has only ~350.000 inhabitants and hence it can't have the same number of opportunities like London, NYC or the Bay Area. That leads to a high variance in pay. I have seen people being underpaid at 85k CHF a year as a senior developer and then going to 120k CHF just by changing companies but doing essentially the same work.

</comment><comment><USER59> Sorry people but Switzerland is boring and hard to integrate! It's nice for specific types of people who enjoy elitism and time-boxing. I will be always surprised by how fast people vanish once the stores are closed...early in the afternoon.

</comment><comment><USER60> From what I've heard from a Swiss friend who moved back from SV with an American spouse: even after correcting for COL, it's a major loss of income.

In SV, engineers are at the top of the money food chain, in Zurich, it's bankers.

</comment><comment><USER61> > Companies that offer stock options are generally rare

Missed opportunity, given that capital gains in Switzerland are tax-free.

On that note, the tax rate in the bar chart is for corporate taxes, not personal taxes. Swiss taxes are low but not that low [1]; the average worker burden is around 22%.

[1] [https://files.taxfoundation.org/20180917120122/A-Comparision...](https://files.taxfoundation.org/20180917120122/A-Comparision- of-the-Tax-Burden-on-Labor-in-the-OECD-2018.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER62> This seems like just any old other "10 reasons for X" or whatever - blog fluff to help raise a brand. Rather than spend a lot of HN intellectual energy on it, we probably should have just passed it by...

That's not to say there aren't some really attractive reasons to be in Switzerland, but trying to compare it to SV is rather pointless (or too broad or too open to disagreement about which metrics matter, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER63> I think it boils down to which culture you like more, American or European. Both have their pros and cons. The American way of life is characterised by more stress, more inequality, perhaps a bit more ambition (for professionals). Less holidays, less calm and perhaps a bit less care free. U.S will generally pay you more. On Average, the average American is less happy than the average Swiss by many measurements.

</comment><comment><USER30> Because of FATCA, if you are a US person, do not underestimate the consequences (costs, admin complexity) of the IRS regulation following you abroad.

</comment><comment><USER64> For cost of living comparisons, there's a great site for that:

[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Switzerland&country2=United+States&city1=Zurich&city2=Mountain+View%2C+CA)

</comment><comment><USER65> Could be worse, you could be living in Dublin, Ireland where it's in the 50% range for damp cold mouldy apartments.

</comment><comment><USER66> I call bullshit on this article. Ah and by the way - the bulk of the article contents start after the following sentence: "There are 8 reasons why I personally find Switzerland much better for the fellow Software Engineer: [...]" This is a _PERSONAL OPINION_ of some random guy.

</comment><comment><USER67> The list seems like a dream, especially the healthcare part and the neutrality of the Swiss, not as extreme and divided. The housing, taxes and pay are icing on the cake. To top it off, Switzerland looks like a dreamland with all those amazing views.

<comment><USER68> _The housing_

If you have a shower or run a bath or do laundry in your apartment outside of the designated hours, your neighbours will complain to the landlord and you may be evicted. The Swiss are very, very fond of rules, and even fonder of enforcing them.

<comment><USER69> Source? Exaggerate much?

<comment><USER18> I would say it's slight exaggeration, having lived in Switzerland for over ten years.

I would put it on the same level as "my home owner's association fined me for only watering my lawn twice a week instead of three times a week".

Not impossible to believe, but also far from normal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Weather and access to nature in Silicon Valley is optimal for humans. The driving is also great. If you have an actual building to live in the Redwood City to Mountain View corridor, it's a fairly amazing life.

</comment><comment><USER71> Few things:

1) Salaries are essentially capped at $120,000.

2) Stock options are very rare.

Basically, you can't get rich. No different than working at Google but with lower salary potential. This is why Switzerland will never be the next SV.

<comment><USER72> I'm pretty sure Google Zurich pays more than $120k.

<comment><USER40> Depends on the position of course, but they pay much less than in the US. If you want to rake in cash, don't go for a tech job. It's much easier to make > 200k in some random middle management position at a bank.

<comment><USER73> > they pay much less than in the US

Not in my experience, it is basically the same. You start at around $160K TC minimum as a junior and then it rises rapidly from there. Glassdoor doesn't have stock and bonus values for Switzerland which makes the salaries look much worse than they actually are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> European tech companies always trumpet free healthcare. But if you work at a top tech company in the US you don't pay for healthcare either, and the wait times for service are better.

</comment><comment><USER75> I know I'm repeating myself, but this should've been a static page - <USER2> if you want to see anything you must enable 3 scripts and 2 XHR. Why, just why?

</comment><comment><USER76> Rent in Zurich is $4000 a month and that as an advantage? Is that a joke? Many workers in Switzerland commute daily from foreign countries to save money.

<comment><USER28> $4000 for rent is not normal for Zurich, and a 25 minute comfortable train commute drops the rent significantly lower.

Try getting a 25 minute commute in SV.

<comment><USER77> That's 25 min to hb? And then you have to change trains or take a tram or whatever. So not 25 mins

Edit: 25 mins to 4th&kings get you as far as Hillsdale which is considerably cheaper too.

<comment><USER28> No, I mean 25 minutes to actual workplace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Not sure about the tax figures the UK is way more than 19% the base rate is 20 and at equivalent wages you will be in the higher band

</comment><comment><USER79> No one is mentioning that healthcare is not free (as in the other European country), but you must pay a very expensive insurance.

<comment><USER44> Insurance itself isn't very expensive compared to what you pay (through mandatory contributions) elsewhere in Europe.

Deductibles are high and healthcare is expensive, and the overall fake competition and illusion of choice among private insurers is bullshit, I agree. But in absolute I'd pay _a lot_ more in countries like France or Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> I am a Swiss-American programmer who has worked in California and also in Switzerland, and this is all accurate.

</comment><comment><USER81> > If you want to save on the premium and keep yourself healthy then you pick > the 2500 franchise and pay as little as 300 CHF per month for healthcare > insurance.

That's..surprisingly expensive for someone that's not self-employed. I didn't think it would be that expensive. Meanwhile for me it's about $30 a month for my HSA employer plan with a lower deductible.

<comment><USER82> Insurance is not linked to employment in Switzerland. You shop around. Employers might help defray the cost. I know at least one large employer who gives 400CHF/mo towards insurance ( on top of salary).

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Meanwhile I pay 20 euro for 1Gbps in Poland and I work remotely for company in New York.

</comment><comment><USER84> Somewhere at the bottom of the site with very small letters:

* requires German C1-level or better

</comment><comment><USER85> What about vacation days and parental leave possibilities?

</comment><comment><USER86> Go to Spain, same salary, free healthcare, better quality of life, better weather, no crunch culture, better social life (good luck making new friends on Switzerland), less taxes and the last nobel prize of literature was inspired meanwhile lived here like many others.

<comment><USER32> > Go to Spain, same salary

The difference is that in Switzerland you get paid that salary every month, not over the full year. (I'm exaggerating, but not that much.)

Edit: by the way, the "less taxes" remark is also quite funny.

<comment><USER87> You're totally exaggerating, been living in Spain for the past 10 years and previously worked in Switzerland, I often get job offers from Swiss companies and the difference is minimal.

<comment><USER32> Either you are too lucky/unlucky and your experience is not typical or you think that a factor of two (at least) is minimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Ireland is looking really nice now

</comment><comment><USER89> Swiss babes

<comment><USER89> ^ 1 person doesn't like Swiss women.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The price comparison reads like a joke from my $500 a month, 2 bedroom, nice neighbourhood apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria. Also, probably saving more money than I would in Switzerland.

"If you are a Software Developer living in Europe then there is a better place for you - and this place is Switzerland."

Ha-ha

Yeah, it's probably not bad in Switzerland, just some of the arguments are really funny.

Also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitosha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitosha)

<comment><USER35> How are salaries in Bulgaria?

<comment><USER90> For a senior dev, anywhere in the range between 2 and 5k EUR net monthly (after taxes).</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 72 – our first song of 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/01/firefox-72-our-first-song-of-2020/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21980143](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21980143).</comment>


Widgetjacking: Why more social widgets mean less secure Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> https://blog.disconnect.me/widgetjacking

<comment><USER2> "Widgets are a security problem for the embedding site" is old news (tptacek has mentioned it more than a few times) but "Widgets mean that certain high- value targets like gmail can get compromised on virtually any Internet session" is an obvious-in-retrospect-but-otherwise-new insight to me. That's significant enough that I would be thinking of some way to separate cookie/authentication architectures for high-value sites for on-site and off- site content. (e.g. You would give the cookie asserting identity as X associated with Facebook comment boxes on 3rd party sites sufficient authorization to post comments but not sufficient authorization to view the Facebook site proper, and otherwise track it in semi-parallel to the main FB cookies, expiring them at the same time, etc etc.)

Edit to add: While the "Only allow embedding over HTTPS" is attractive from a security perspective, this is one of those occasions where the business has needs which are distinct from and difficult to subordinate to maximizing security. There's very little difference between that remediation and "Turn off Facebook Likes web-wide, please." and that proposal (presumably) is an auto-fail at FB.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think for almost all cases, there are simpler solutions:

* Use secure cookies (set the secure bit so these cookies are only sent over HTTPS) for authenticating on your HTTPS site

* Use a separate domain for embeds ("youtube-widgets.com" instead of "youtube.com" on third-party sites)

<comment><USER2> youtube-widgets.com still may, depending on product requirements, need to have some notion of your Youtube account credentials. This would, in turn, potentially make youtube-widgets.com into a back door into your Gmail if somebody wasn't careful. ( _grumble grumble_ The decision to merge the Youtube and all-powerful-Google* logins was about my least favorite login decision since OpenID $INSERT_HYPERBOLIC_SOUNDING_REFERENCES_TO_BAD_MYTHICAL_EVENTS_ WHICH_WHILE_BAD_ARE_STILL_NOT_AS_BAD_AS_OPENID.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This appears to be similar to Ghostery[1] except that Ghostery just blocks all these beacons/tracking scripts/social media scripts and has much more coverage.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdfkolichcflejclcbmpeaniij)

<comment><AUTHOR> Disconnect blocks stuff, too. But if you unblock something (e.g., to see comments on TechCrunch), you shouldn't have to be exposed to session hijacking. That's why we added this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Off topic, but why would you put "html { -webkit-text-size-adjust: none }" in your CSS?

Not everyone has great eyesight, and I happen to like being able to zoom in and actually read.

<comment><AUTHOR> IIRC, the default font sizing on iOS was weird without that rule. But I didn't realize we broke zooming. I did accessibility work in my last job, so I feel pretty dumb now. Will fix.

<comment><USER4> Glad to hear it wasn't intentional :D</comment></comment></comment>


Automated Reconstruction of Drosophila Brain Using Flood Filling Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/605634v1 <comment><AUTHOR> I expected this would take a few more years, I have no words to describe how excited I am about this news. Drosophila's 135.000 neurons... compare it to the manual segmentation of C. elegans' nervous system taking about 15 years (in the eighties).

Here is an interesting view of the (segmented) brain: [https://imgur.com/a/VGxvDJV](https://imgur.com/a/VGxvDJV)

"The primary result presented here is an automated segmentation of neuronal processes densely covering the entire FAFB dataset, which contains 40 teravoxels of tissue within a 995x537x283 µm EM volume resulting from a correlation- and feature-based deformable alignment of ~21 million raw ssTEM camera images."</comment>


Unveiling "Careto" – The Masked APT [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.securelist.com/en/downloads/vlpdfs/unveilingthemask_v1.0.pdf

<comment><USER2> > What makes "The Mask" special is the complexity of the toolset used by the > attackers. This includes an extremely sophisticated malware, a rootkit, a > bootkit, 32- and 64-bit Windows versions, Mac OS X and Linux versions and > possibly versions for Android and iPad/iPhone (Apple iOS).

> When active in a victim system, The Mask can intercept network traffic, > keystrokes, Skype conversations, PGP keys, analyse WiFi traffic, fetch all > information from Nokia devices, screen captures and monitor all file > operations.

> The malware collects a large list of documents from the infected system, > including encryption keys, VPN configurations, SSH keys and RDP files. There > are also several extensions being monitored that we have not been able to > identify and could be related to custom military/government-level encryption > tools.

Edit:

> We have detected traces of Linux versions, and possibly versions for > iPad/iPhone and Android, however we have not been able to retrieve the > samples.

</comment><comment><USER3> Though it is said the word comes from Spanish, I, as a Portuguese can only think of the pre-historic Celtic tradition... This year it happened again just two days ago...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careto)</comment>


Cloud Computing Wins the Preakness - <AUTHOR> http://www.espn.com/horse-racing/story/_/id/19426608/cloud-computing-wins-142nd-preakness-stakes-pimlico <comment><USER2> It's just someone else's horse.</comment>


Google sheep view - <AUTHOR> http://www.googlesheepview.com/ <comment><USER2> After waking up, I watched a video of two cats fighting and screaming for a couple of minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEvvRfuVk30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEvvRfuVk30)

The video has 8 million views.

Out of all the activities and experiences that our modern world offers, 8 million viewers still chose to watch two cats fighting ... Why ?

Projects like these make me both happy and scared - happy, because life is so good that people have nothing better to do than look for photos of sheep on google maps and publish them online.

Scared because a lot more people have nothing better to do than visit that page and look at the photos of sheep somewhere in time and space.. Have we all gone mad ?

<comment><USER3> I posted a 9 second video of me pushing a coke can over a table making a sound that's similar to Chewbacca ([https://youtu.be/myhYNsRXYgs](https://youtu.be/myhYNsRXYgs)) a few days ago. So far it's been seen 750.000 times on youtube and about 3.000.000 times on facebook. This is about 416 days worth of people watching this video (wasting time).

However, I think it is the wrong perspective to take. People do all sorts of "seemingly" non-productive things (including but not limited to watching stupid youtube videos)... all the time. But I think these activities might have important and positive social properties (people bonding over the video, having a laugh). There are possibly even some positive psychological effects (such as stress relief). Well, that's just my thoughts on the matter. :)

But of course I'm not a psychologist, and I don't know if this is the case in reality. But it is certainly an interesting topic to explore.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, how much ad revenue has that video generated for you?

<comment><USER3> Nothing yet, because I signed with Flock Video (that was really stupid of me).

However, the other video I have on my channel have made about 1.5 DKK ($0.21) from the curious few (about 5.000 views) who saw that video as well.

I don't really expect anything... I'll just have to wait and see when Flock Video send me my cut in january. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the perfect intelligence gathering tool for wolves when they understand the Internet!

</comment><comment><USER6> If you enjoyed these, also be sure to check out Jon Rafman's [http://9-eyes.com/](http://9-eyes.com/)

<comment><USER7> I have no idea what's going on in most of these photos, but I love it. I wish they had coordinates though.

<comment> vive-la-liberte Same here. Would like to know where [http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maf5ynOadW1qzun8oo1_1280.j...](http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maf5ynOadW1qzun8oo1_1280.jpg) was taken.

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigokudani_Monkey_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigokudani_Monkey_Park)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a sheep, and I feel really bad about this website. My private life is exposed to anyone, since my face is clearly shown! Why google only masks human faces?

</comment><comment><USER10> Developed in the Netherlands, yet this is the most Kiwi use of technology I have ever seen...

<comment><USER11> It is sort of (although a very weak link) validation that there are more sheep in NZ than anywhere else in the world.

<comment><USER12> In absolute numbers that's not even remotely true. According to FAOSTAT the undisputed top 1 is mainland China (175M) followed by Australia (75M), India (64M), Sudan (52M) and Iran (50M). New Zealand is down to 31M heads and it's been falling pretty much continually since the 1999 uptick to 46M heads.

NZ _may_ have the highest number of sheep per capita and highest sheep density (especially since FAOSTAT doesn't list Wales independently)

<comment><USER13> If we consider Wales separately then I think it would beat NZ on density.

A quick search suggests 8.9M sheep in Wales[1], around 430s/km^2 , NZ is only about 120s/km^2.

Per capita though NZ beats Wales, and probably any other country.

[1] [http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/sheep-lamb- popu...](http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/sheep-lamb-population- continues-rise-2018803)

<comment><USER14> Seeing that they use google streetview I think we need a metric of sheep per road kilometer.

<comment><USER13> That's remarkably close but NZ edges it. I make it about: Wales: 250s/km NZ: 330s/km

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this automated in some way? Comments here seem to be discussing it as if it were, yet I can't find anything to imply that on the site itself.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, there is a submit link. Definitely an interesting deep learning problem. Search Google Streetview for X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem with AJAX pages is that I keep scrolling just to see how far it goes. 455 entries, not bad.

<comment><USER18> I find myself scrolling just to see if I can get at the horribly placed links and text at the bottom of the page, before the next batch loads in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> These images seem to be all submitted by people who found them manually. Are there enough images that we could train a neural network to recognize sheep in Google Streetview pictures?

Sure, we could also train it on other random sheep pictures, but I'm betting that wouldn't be as good at correctly classifying sheep in Streetview sheep since those pictures will likely contain the sheep from a similar angle, orientation, and size (that isn't similar to the street view pics). Not sure though.

</comment><comment><USER20> For a moment I thought this was a clever deep learning demo. But hey, how about making one?

</comment><comment><USER21> the best part [http://www.googlesheepview.com/outtakes](http://www.googlesheepview.com/outtakes)

</comment><comment><USER22> came here to see sheep, was not disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is why hacker news is better at 4am...

</comment><comment><USER24> What beautiful scenery.

</comment><comment><USER25> was this done with machine learning or manual submission?

</comment><comment><USER26> A domain name is sheep anyway!

</comment><comment><USER27> Don't tell the Welsh!

<comment><USER28> The Welshman in me is very excited about this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That was a fun eight seconds.

</comment><comment><USER30> Do they have no respect for the privacy of the sheep?

</comment><comment><USER31> Soon to be New Zealand's most popular dating site.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why would you register a domain name which contains a trademark? Wasted money.

<comment><USER33> You're getting a lot of downvotes but I agree - I know from experience that google pursues domains that contain "google" hard and fast.

<comment><USER34> Could you share with us your experience?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> When the iPhone 7 is released, you will be able to clearly see the locations of the Apple stores :)</comment>


How to start - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-to-start-43bb921a36b6 <comment><USER2> tldr; You miss 100% of the shots you don't take; fail forward and learn something.</comment>